EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 15 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 179 weakened their position and gave way to a new approach to spending. As a result of the rapid development of society, the growth of welfare of citizens, the influence of Western values and a number of internal cultural stimulators led to the strengthening of consumer values in the mainstream culture. The modern youth culture, as the Chinese society itself, acquired a pluralistic structure in which you can reveal not only a reflection of the changes that have occurred, but also trace further development of the value system. Current studies focus on the rampant consumerism in the Chinese society, raise of the domestic consumption and economic development, but if the Chinese Consumerism speeds up the rate at post-materialistic values, what will be the “face” of the Chinese consumers? Trying to answer this question, this study analyzes modern Chinese youth subcultures in connection to consumer values, in the context of their interaction with the official and mainstream culture. Flock Ryanne (Free University Berlin) Performing the Right to the City of Spectacles — Panhandling and the Dynamics of Public Space in Contemporary Guangzhou Key words: urban China, public space, spectacle, exclusion, panhandling This study examines the strength and limits of the “spectacle” as a mechanism of exclusion in China’s contemporary urban public space. Taking the “right to the city” as a perspective of agency, the focus lies on the conflict between the state and the panhandling poor: How, why and which government actors refuse or allow beggars access to public space? How and why do beggars appropriate public space to receive alms and adapt their strategies? And what do the interactions of these opponent groups say about exclusion in urban China? Taking themetropolis Guangzhou as case study, I argue: Beggars contest the expulsion frompublic space through begging performances. Rising barriers of public space require higher investment in these performances, taking even more resources from the panhandling poor. The trends of public order are not unidirectional, however. Beggars navigate between several contextual borders composed by the discourse on deserving, undeserving, and dangerous beggars; the moral legitimacy of the government versus the imagination of a successful, “modern,” and “civilised” city. The local government attempts to gain economically and politically by erasing the public appearance of rural and new urban poverty. However, I elucidate public space in urban China as processual and fluid and show the agency of even those most deprived and most unwelcomed. Interestingly, beggars not only create cracks in an idealized public space, but they fit in and adapt. Their performances are part of the very image they are supposed to negate — public spaces of spectacular consumption and entertainment. Guiheux Gilles (Université Paris Diderot) Flexibility and Mobility. The Case of Shanghai White-Collars Key words: labour regime, subjectivity, wage society, tactics, flexibility, mobility, self employment, salaried employment The academic literature on labour issues in China has underlined the diversification of labour regimes. Most analyses imply that the transformation of the labour regimes in China is the result of the globalization of capitalism. Since 2010, academic research has focused on workers activism and forms of mobilization. What I am aiming in this paper is at a micro perspective on the issue of labour and labour regime, paying attention to the subjectivity of workers, and to the way people relate to work in today’s China after “thirty glorious” years ( 光荣的三十年 ) of fast economy growth. What we are aiming at is at identifying how in today’s China individuals relate to work and labour. So its is less a sociology of labour that we are aiming at then an analysis of the changing attitudes towards work and labour, an analysis of the changing modes of existence. We are especially looking at the alternatives to the hegemonic forms of employment and lifestyles. In an effort to approach the subjectivity of individuals and their attitude towards labour, to analyse their tactics to circumvent social norms, we have conducted 15 interviews with 10 women and 5 men, all born between the early 1970s and mid 1980, aged between 28 and 43 years. They all live and work in Shanghai and have university degrees. By collecting professional life stories, our aim